Title:
"Future Directions of Combining Positron Emission Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging"

December 10, A-1-08. Speaker: Prof. Volkmar Schulz (Institute for Experimental Molecular Imaging, RWTH-Aachen University).

Curriculum vitae of the speaker

Announcement about the seminar

The combination of positron emission tomography (PET) with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a promising tool due to the high complementarity of these two imaging techniques. Commercial hybrid whole body scanners have been introduced during the last decade by nearly all big vendors [1]. Technical challenges such as attenuation correction and MR-compatible detector technology have been an active area of research for the last decades [2]. The overall system design of PET and MRI was motivated by an earlier combination of PET with Computed Tomography (CT) as a whole-body imaging modality. In typical clinical practice, however, MRI is mostly used to image specific organs rather the entire body. In addition, unlike CT, MRI offers a wide range of very special contrasts for almost all organs. In order to take advantage of this diversity of MRI, we have developed a new MR-compatible PET-detector platform with which we will initiate a paradigm shift from full-body to special PET/MRT scanners [3,4]. The development and application of this technology will be presented during the presentation.

[1] Vandenberghe, Stefaan, and Paul K. Marsden. "PET-MRI: a review of challenges and solutions in the development of integrated multimodality imaging." Physics in Medicine & Biology 60.4 (2015): R115.

[2] Schulz, V., et al. "Automatic, three-segment, MR-based attenuation correction for whole-body PET/MR data." European journal of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging 38.1 (2011): 138-152.

[3] Weissler, Bjoern, et al. "A digital preclinical PET/MRI insert and initial results." IEEE transactions on medical imaging 34.11 (2015): 2258-2270.

[4] Schug, David, et al. "Initial PET performance evaluation of a preclinical insert for PET/MRI with digital SiPM technology." Physics in Medicine & Biology 61.7 (2016): 2851.

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